A Tactless Attack on Gay Hospital Patients

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama made a bit of history by issuing a memorandum ordering U.S. hospitals (or at least those that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs) to allow full visitation rights for same-sex partners. It was a much needed move, highlighted by heartbreaking stories like Janice Langbehn, who was denied access to her dying partner in a Miami hospital, or Sharon Reed, who was removed from her dying partner's hospital room by a homophobic "nurse from hell."

Even for those folks who cringe at the idea of gay marriage, could there be anything offensive about letting a same-sex partner into a hospital room? Would somebody or some group be so craven as to say to a dying patient, "No, I don't care who you love. You deserve to die alone."?

As Sarah Palin might say, you betcha. Cue the anger from some right-wing anti-gay groups over Obama's hospital memorandum. They don't see this as a human right, or as a way of making sure that sick and dying people don't have to suffer alone. Nope, they see this as part of the slippery slope to same-sex marriage, and something that should be condemned. A bit soulless, eh?

The fact that it took this long in American history for a memorandum on hospital visitation rights to get traction is pretty telling. Reagan or Bush Sr. couldn't have done this in the face of the HIV/AIDS crisis? Clinton couldn't have done this as an extension of LGBT benefits, and a mea culpa for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the Defense of Marriage Act?  Bush Jr. couldn't have done this, given that his own Vice President had a lesbian daughter who theoretically could have been barred from her partner's hospital room?

Meanwhile, as About.com's Tom Head points out, Obama is receiving the wrath of several right-wing groups and bloggers who think that hospital visitation rights = homosexual orgies and forced gay weddings.

He points to the Family Research Council, the same organization that trumpets close ties to several major GOP politicians, as one example. Earlier this year, the Family Research Council suggested that homosexuality should be criminalized in the United States. Now they're arguing that LGBT hospital patients deserve to die alone.

"In its current political context," the FRC's Peter Sprigg said, "President Obama's memorandum clearly constitutes pandering to a radical special interest group; undermining the definition of marriage; and furthering a big-government federal takeover of even the smallest details of the nation's health care system."

That's right. Making sure that people have their loved ones next to them after surgery, or during their final moments of life, is not a sign of basic human decency, but rather just another indication that the government wants to run our health care system like Cuba.

Frankly, in its current political context, Peter Sprigg's statement is nothing more than soulless rhetoric that suggests LGBT people should die alone.

Sprigg isn't the only one. Self-proclaimed Internet powerhouse Andy Martin (ever heard of him? Me neither...) suggested that President Obama created a "homosexual Roe v. Wade" in issuing the hospital visitation rights memorandum. Martin is planning on taking this memorandum and using it as a springboard to get GOP candidates elected this November.

We hear one of his talking points is going to be: "Vote for the GOP, and we'll promise to let gay people die horrible, miserable deaths in complete isolation."

Yeah, we'll see how that talking point plays out for them at the ballot box.

Tom Head nails this when he says that regardless of what you think about homosexuality or gay marriage, this is about human decency, nothing more.

"Most civil liberties controversies are about differences in cultural background, personal experience, and economic status," Head writes. "But to look at [anti-gay hospital discrimination], and see it as acceptable, shows an exhausting spiritual emptiness and moral depravity."

Spiritually empty. Depraved. Craven. Wow, can you think of any better words to describe the type of people who would actually oppose hospital visitation rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people?

Photo credit: jeffadair